“Faylinn.” He nodded his head curtly in my direction. “Where is she?”
I heaved a breath, desperately trying to get my heart rate under control again.
Sitting around and reading all day has put me out of shape.
“She’s outside,” I huffed, pushing curly tendrils off my sweaty, sticky face. Torin’s expression morphed from stoic curiosity to thunderous anger.
“She was supposed to stay inside! In the manor! That’s . . . that’s the whole point of meeting you down here!” he roared, his hands fisting his hair in obvious distress.
“I know, I know. But she just appeared out of nowhere in the mess hall and led a team out before I could stop her.”
Torin began to pace, muttering something under his breath, hands still caught in his hair.
“Fine. Then we go outside.” He nodded to himself before releasing his hair and striding toward the stairs.
“Which way did she go?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, and Torin swore loudly.
“Who is she with? The three she’s been training with?” I nodded my head and he cursed again. “They won’t let her out of their sights. They’re all slightly . . . unhinged.”
The walls of the Academy rocked, debris and dust raining down with the movement. Neither Torin nor I bothered to wipe it from our hair and clothes—they’d only be splattered with more dubious things later.
“You have to get to her, Torin,” I urged. “I’m nervous about what the appearance of the gods at our doorstep means.”
Torin paused his pacing, his body wound tight with tension, and closed his eyes briefly. “They can’t have her,” he said with abone-chilling finality. “Not just because a godling in their hands would spell the end of Elyria, but because she’smine. And I am hers.”
My eyebrows raised a hair at the possessiveness in his tone as he bounded up the stairs in search of Ellowyn.
I stayed at the entrance to the passageway, caught between the need to reinforce the wards and the untimely desire to have Rohak claim me the same way Torin claimed Ellowyn.
Chapter 88
Torin
All sense of survival was gone.
I needed to reach Ellowyn first. Before my rebel army, before the gods’ sycophants, and certainly before the gods themselves.
But I was already ten steps behind and completely unaware of her plans.
None of this would have happened if she had just left with me. I shoved a few cowering cadets out of my path as I sprinted through the main hall of the Academy. None paid me a second glance, too absorbed in their own fight. Clearly a few task leaders felt it would be best for their unAwakened cadets to remain inside the Academy while the battle raged outside.
Hopefully the Academy doesn’t fall on top of them. As if the building heard my thoughts, it shook and groaned before a few glittering obsidian bricks joined the thick layer of dust coating the floors. I heard squeals of fright before the cadets barricaded themselves in one of the empty classrooms.
I should go back and direct them to sit underneath a supporting arch so the ceiling would not fall on their heads, butmy feet refused to halt my mad dash for the Academy’s front doors, Ellowyn’s name an echoing chant as I ran.
Ellowyn. Ellowyn. Ellowyn.
The sounds of clashing magic, bellowed calls, and pained screams echoed through the empty hall, only growing louder the closer I drew to the door. Without any thought of my own safety or what lay beyond the door, I pushed through and nearly fell down the exterior stairs.
A blast of ice nearly froze me in place, but my momentum luckily carried me past.
Who threw that?
My eyes searched wildly as I rolled off the platform and onto the street below, narrowly dodging a minor fireball, and hastily threw up an Air Shield just in time to repel yet another ice attack.
For the love of the gods, who is attacking me?
